They did it when they were young
Patrick Clark
Columnist
Have our perceptions about youth and war changed in the past century? One only needs to look to recent news to find the answer.
In 1917, a 16-year-old farm boy named Frank Buckles lied about his age to join in the undertaking of the Great War. After the coming and going of Versailles, Prohibition, the Great Depression and World War II, he retired to a quiet farm in West Virginia for the remaining years of the turbulent 20th century.
On Feb. 27, 2011 the last American to walk the trenches of the Western Front died at the age of 110, severing the final human connection between the United States and World War I.
The legacy of Frank Buckles is not only important because of his status as the last American veteran of the so-called “War to End All Wars,” but also because it shows a great change in societal opinions and attitudes regarding military conflict. It also proves that certain elements of the psychology of a nation at war haven’t been altered by the passage of time.
Would it even be possible today to think of a high school sophomore going from one enlistment station to the other with the hope that the officers won’t notice that he is only 16? Or for him to volunteer to drive an ambulance and haul the wounded and maimed – who could very well be his classmates – from the front, all in the hope of getting to see the battle as soon as possible?
In our culture today, there is a never-ending stream of novels, films and other commentaries on the impact of war on the youth who experience it. But even with all the stories of years past and present, could anyone begin to imagine a relative or friend with a rifle and bayonet, slogging away in the grime amid the bodies that laid in the fields of France before they even had a high school diploma? Those that have spent warm June nights on back porches watching the dusk turn to night sky or in a friend’s basement for countless hours with the radio on, are safely tucked away from the distant bombs and automatic guns.
Perhaps there aren’t 16-year-old souls in the shadows of bombed-out cities and minarets in Afghanistan and Iraq, but they are a mere two or three years older. A bearded Uncle Sam doesn’t stare down from his imposing posters anymore, but there are recruiting tables next to school lunch lines and video games that simulate Fallujah and Kabul flying off the shelves.
The Great War may be long gone, but the idea of a “great adventure” is still found in our generation’s mindset. This idea permeates our culture even if the numbers of the war dead won’t permeate the headlines of cable news shows.
The grand illusion of war hasn’t changed. The idea that conflict is a glorious adventure is a permanent aspect of our society, be it the prospect of going to fight the Kaiser in Europe or al-Qaida in the Middle East. Even if the pomp and parade of George M. Cohan and John Phillip Sousa have been retired to the ages, the ideas and feelings invoked still exist in every ad for the Marine Corps and every billboard for the military industrial complex.
The reality of war is not to be taken lightly when it comes to the hearts and minds of a nation’s youth. And though a society should and ought to have the upmost respect for the sacrifices of its veterans, the reason for any conflict must be truly justified before anybody is made a veteran.